Stephen Hawking unveils time-eating clock

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/communications/1522.html

Cambridge (UK) – Physicist Stephen Hawking helped unveil what may be most scary clock in the world. The Corpus Clock, located at the University of Cambridge, visualizes the belief that time will always be against us. A grasshopper/locust sits atop the dial, eating away every second of our life, swallowing minutes and hours with pleasure. You could get very depressed watching this $2 million clock tick away – or you may see this time-eater as an image to highlight the value of every second that is given to us.

The unusual clock, designed by John Taylor and unveiled by Stephen Hawking, took five years to create and makes a big statement through its gold-plated, almost 4 foot-wide dial and a gold-encrusted monster, part grasshopper, part locust sitting on top of it. As the time passes, the grasshopper/locust turns the dial, sixty times a second, and eats minutes and hours with opening jaws and shaking tail.

The time (hours, minutes, seconds) is shown through slits in the dial, which are illuminated with blue LEDs. "It is terrifying, it is meant to be," Taylor told The Guardian. "Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next. It's not a bad thing to remind students of. I never felt like this until I woke up on my 70th birthday, and was stricken at the thought of how much I still wanted to do, and how little time remained."

"I also wanted to depict that time is a destroyer - once a minute is gone you can't get it back,” he said.

Taylor, who amassed a fortune by inventing and selling kettle thermostats, said that it took 200 people and an investment of £1 million, almost $2 million, to build the lock. Its electric motor is expected to last for about 25 years.


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http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/communications/1522.html

[man4allcats]

1. "Its electric motor is expected to last for about 25 years."

The clock is ticking on that.

For along time, I thought the universe might ultimately end in cold death with expansion exceeding gravity until everything we know as matter expanded so far that it could never be retrieved. But that was back when I thought I might have the capacity to ascertain something significant about what existence is and why or if it matters. These days, I really have no fucking idea.

[CarlB]

2. WOW

Coooool!

I have nothing else to say but thanks for posting.

[Peace Patriot]

3. This is the goddamnedest thing I ever heard of! Two million pounds for a goddamned CLOCK!

The only real pleasure in life is FORGETTING the seconds ticking by to your death. LOSING yourself--in love, in art, in your work, in your family, in contemplation of nature and beauty, in learning, in meditation, in benefiting others. EXPANDING each second of your life by FORGETTING it, and by NOT SEEING it as time lost in a race toward death.

We need to GET RID OF CLOCKS. They are the most diabolical obsession of the industrial revolution. They kill life and creativity.

Millions of people starving, homeless, and feeling hopeless but for a little bit of help, the planet's ecosystem in grave trouble and humanity in need of education about it, and desperately in need of scientific/engineering solutions, western capitalism in major meltdown, with many MORE people about to suffer, and creative ideas for survival and recovery in short supply--so many worthy things that 2 million pounds could pay for, and they throw it away on THIS? A clock? A clock with an UGLY GRASSHOPPER?! A clock to tell you you're going to be dead soon?!

As an art project, using gold foil and lights, okay. Worth a look. Worth a thought. But TWO MILLION POUNDS worth of CLOCK?

Really, I am flabbergasted. It is the dumbest, most wasteful, most pointless thing anybody could have imagined--with the possible exception of the manufacture of SUVs.

[My Good Babushka]

4. Too f#@king awesome!

Gorgeous artwork. They should have gone the extra mile, though, and made it "real" clockwork. 25 years isn't that long. There are clocks hundreds of years old that still work tolerably well.

[Thor_MN]

5. What about bulemic locusts?

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Damn, I have little enough time as it is

And now Hawking has set the locusts on what I have. :cry: